


Iceberg Veins

by fanfictiongreenirises



Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [15]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Platonic Cuddling, Sharing a Bed, Tim Drake is Robin, no beta we typo like people writing fics at midnight, or in this case a couch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23649625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfictiongreenirises/pseuds/fanfictiongreenirises
Summary: His nails were definitely blue, and his hand, normally already very white, was practically translucent.Tim can't get warm after a mission.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Alfred Pennyworth, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne
Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622032
Comments: 36
Kudos: 505
Collections: Tim Drake and Red Robin Stories





	Iceberg Veins

**Author's Note:**

> For the "Hypothermia" square on my Batman bingo card! For @believe-in-chemistry 
> 
> This is the fic that officially lets me call bingo, and for two rows at once! I'm kinda shook ngl. It's mid-April and I'm well past halfway through my entire card, which I really didn't expect to happen. I'm still continuing with the card (link in the series description) until I finish the entire thing, so keep sending in requests if you have any!
> 
> Disclaimer: don't own DC ^~^

THIS FANFICTION IS HOSTED ON **ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN** , WHERE YOU CAN READ IT FOR **FREE**. IF YOU’RE READING THIS ON A DIFFERENT WEBSITE, IT WAS POSTED THERE **WITHOUT** THE AUTHOR’S CONSENT.

“Little bird thinks he’s invincible,” crooned the woman in the white lab coat, squeezing Tim’s cheeks with her gloved hands. “Little bird thinks he can come in here and _ruin_ everything I’ve spent my whole life _building!”_

Tim tried to keep his mouth shut, because whatever she was trying to get in him was nothing good. He also tried to ration his breathing, because her mouth had apparently never seen a toothbrush in its life.

His hands were chained to the poles on either side of him, legs the same. Right now she was sitting on his stomach, a knee on his chest, but her weight was too low on his body to throw her off. He needed her to move up a bit higher.

Tim arched his back, using the wall his legs were pressed up against as leverage to bend his knees and throw her forward. She let out a started yelp, hand coming up to brace herself and accidentally squeezing the syringe.

Liquid sprayed everywhere, splattering all over Tim’s neck and sliding down the collar of his cape. He grimaced at the slimy sensation, but relieved it hadn’t gotten in his mouth, at least.

At that moment, just as she was getting up, eyes blazing as they turned to him, the door slammed open. Tim slumped in relief as Batman entered. He hated Bruce having to rescue him, but it was nice having backup.

“Robin?” he growled, even as he quickly took out the scientist.

Bruce moved her outside, handcuffing her hands and returning to free Tim.

“Great timing,” Tim said, rubbing his wrists and getting to work on his feet. “Just after she’d finished spilling her secrets to me, too.”

Bruce’s face didn’t change, but Tim could sense the smile, even if it was invisible. “Come on,” he said. “The police are going to be here soon.”

The ride back to the Cave was quiet. Tim felt random shivers running down his spine, and he fiddled with the heating, turning it up and double checking that the vents were facing him.

Bruce glanced at him. “Cold?” he asked.

The only time Bruce asked a question he already knew the answer to was when he was trying to accuse Tim of something. Tim’s favourites were _you’ve finished your homework?_ and _is your father home?_

The latter wasn’t really accusing _Tim_ , though. It just felt like it was.

“Just trying to get dry,” Tim muttered. “She spilled something on me.”

Bruce’s head whipped towards him. “What?” he asked sharply.

Tim shrugged. “It didn’t go inside anywhere,” he said. “I’m honestly just still feeling it on me. It’s sticky. A shower and I’ll be good to go.”

Bruce grunted, but he drove noticeably faster.

* * *

Alfred had checked him over multiple times, running a number of tests before finally telling Bruce there was nothing out of the ordinary with Tim. Bruce had been reluctant to let him go, but Tim hadn’t told him that the house would be empty – Bruce assumed he was expected home.

Tim was glad – he was _beat_. He wanted nothing more than to crash into bed and sleep for twelve hours, which he was free to do now that his father had gone on business and taken Dana with him. And Mrs Mac only came in after noon for a few hours.

Tim walked up the stairs, shivering. He had no idea why he was feeling so cold – it wasn’t a particularly chilly night, and Alfred had made him put on one of Dick’s old sweaters and wrap a scarf around his neck before he’d left the Manor.

But nothing Tim tried would make him warm, not even the cup of tea he wrapped his fingers around. He didn’t feel like going up to his room, knowing it’d be cold and dark and empty. Instead, he lit up the fireplace – even though he technically wasn’t allowed to, but who was here to tell him off? – and wrapped a blanket around himself, settling on the rug in front of the fire.

Tim flicked through his phone, still a bit too keyed up to sleep. The adrenaline from the fight hadn’t left his system yet, and he still had half a cup of tea remaining. Tim typed a response to a text Kon had sent while he’d been out, before opening up a nice mind-numbing game.

It was only halfway through a battle that he realised his fingernails were turning blue. Tim frowned, mind groggy but desperately trying to claw itself into awareness.

Maybe it really had gotten colder – he hadn’t turned on the heating, because it was pointless trying to heat up a room as large as the living room he was in. But the fire was going strong. Maybe it was the lighting.

Tim turned on the torch on his phone with numb and unfeeling fingers, shining it on his hand.

His nails were definitely blue, and his hand, normally already very white, was practically translucent.

Tim tried to stand, but his head swooped until he was much too dizzy to do so. He couldn’t feel his feet.

Panic was crawling up Tim’s throat as he reached out for his phone, frantically tapping the screen until he was calling Alfred.

“Master Tim?” Alfred’s voice was sharp – Tim _never_ called this late. “Is everything alright?”

“Alf,” Tim’s voice was croaky, but he couldn’t seem to get it back to normal. “I think that liquid might’ve had an effect on me.”

“Bruce will be right there,” Alfred said, voice all business. “I will stay on the phone with you until he does. Now, explain the situation to me.”

Every time Tim faded out and his voice dropped, Alfred would be there in his ear, sharp and insistent, waking him back up. He didn’t know how long it was until Bruce got there – they _were_ neighbours, after all – but it felt like hours.

Footsteps raced towards him and suddenly Tim’s view of the fireplace was obscured as Bruce crouched down by him.

“Tim?” he said. In a louder voice, he added, “I have him, Alfred.”

“Hey, B,” Tim said, prying his eyes open again.

“I’m going to take you to—” Bruce frowned. “You’re alone.”

He grabbed Tim’s hand, intending on checking his pulse. There was a crunching noise. The two of them froze as little red dots appeared on his hand, blood vessels rupturing and blood escaping under his skin.

Bruce cursed, and gently placed the hand back under the blanket. He wrapped Tim up as tightly as he dared, and then picked him up.

Bruce was an absolute furnace as Tim pressed his forehead against his neck. Bruce shivered involuntarily.

“Sorry,” Tim whispered, moving his head back, but Bruce made a frustrated noise and jostled his arm until Tim’s head was back in the junction of his shoulder and neck.

He tucked Tim in the passenger seat of the car and drove, wheels screeching as they left the driveway. Tim was beyond shaking now, and part of him knew that that was a bad thing, that he was developing symptoms of hypothermia, but the rest of him that was tired and wanted to sleep didn’t feel particularly bothered by that.

“Hey,” Bruce said, “talk to me. What happened? Report, Robin.”

Tim tried to focus. Bruce needed to know. What if a civilian got this in their system?

“Got home,” he said, voice slurred. “Felt cold. Thought it was just chilly, y’know? Made tea to warm me up, lit the fire. Got the blanket. But it was still cold. And then my fingers went blue, and that was _freaky_.” He let out a little laugh, which probably came out more deranged than he’d intended, judging by the look Bruce shot him.

It was strange, to be riding shotgun to Bruce Wayne and not Batman.

They pulled up in the Manor driveway, and Bruce leapt out of the car, running around to the other side and lifting Tim out. Tim could hear him speaking, could feel the vibrations in his chest that tickled him as he pressed himself tighter into a ball, trying to make it easier for Bruce to hold him.

Bruce’s heart was beating _much_ faster than baseline. Tim could feel it beneath his ear, pounding. He didn’t know what that meant, and he wasn’t really up for figuring it out. He filed it away in the corner of his mind, another piece of Bruce in the mental file he had of him.

Alfred had gotten the medbay prepared while they’d been on the phone. Bruce placed Tim down on the bed, and it took everything Tim had in him to not reach out and tell him to stay. He’d thought he was beyond shivering, but let one final shake wrack his body as Bruce released him, leaving him cold on the pristine white cot.

He was immediately covered by blankets, fluffy and white. Bruce placed them around him as Alfred took a blood sample.

Alfred sucked in a breath, making both Bruce and Tim turn to him.

“What—” Bruce looked at what Alfred was holding with wide eyes, immediately jumping into action.

The syringe with the sample Alfred had just taken from Tim had bits of frozen blood floating in it, and as they watched, more and more pieces attached itself to it, the bits of ice growing.

“Yikes,” Tim commented. “That’s probably bad.”

He received two sets of glares in response.

Something pricked his arm. More blankets settled around him, a few hot water bottles. The next time Tim looked up, there was a tube of his blood running through a machine and then entering back into his body. He closed his eyes again, and was out, the toll of the previous couple of days and the hypothermia finally hitting him.

* * *

The next time Tim woke, he was in the smaller living room adjacent to the kitchen. He knew this because it was one of his preferred rooms in the Manor, when he would spend time here. The fireplace was warm and burning, and Tim was… warm.

Tim jerked, thrashing a little in the possible _mountain_ of blankets he currently had heaped around him, panic climbing as he couldn’t get his arms out.

“Tim. Tim!”

Bruce’s voice.

Tim stopped, wondering where it’d come from. Because it _sounded_ like it was from right behind him, but that couldn’t be right because the back of the couch was there – Tim was _leaning_ on it.

Hands rubbed down his arms. “It’s okay,” Bruce said. “You’re going to be okay. We fixed it.”

Tim moved until he could see behind him, a wild theory popping into his mind.

Bruce was there behind him, Tim practically in his lap. Neither of them had their shirts on, and if Tim had thought that Bruce was a furnace before, he was positively _lava_ now.

“What happened?” Tim asked, not sure whether he was supposed to move back into the position he’d been in or if he should sit back.

The distance between them left space for cold outside air to come in, and despite himself, Tim shuddered as it hit his barely warm skin.

“You may be out of the woods, but you’re still mildly hypothermic,” Bruce told him, eyebrows a solid line on his face. He shifted his position, settling back into the cushions. “Come on. Skin to skin contact.”

Tim caved, melting back into Bruce’s warm chest. He wasn’t aware enough to be self-conscious, but come morning and he would probably never be able to look Bruce in the eye again.

“It was slow reacting.” Bruce’s voice was low, chest vibrating with his words and making Tim squirm a little as it tickled his ear. Bruce repositioned the blankets around them, manoeuvring them around so Tim’s ears were covered, but his nose was till out. “Seeped into your skin around your shoulders. The blood would freeze, the size of the frozen pieces increasing until you died either of a blood clot or hypothermia.”

Bruce had started rubbing Tim’s upper arm bruskly, the speed rising and falling with his words. His hands were calloused and rough against Tim’s scarred skin. His other hand carded through Tim’s hair. Tim had no idea how to react to that. He couldn’t remember the last time his parents had done that.

“Oh,” was all Tim could say. Maybe he’d have more words in the morning, when he wasn’t feeling so sleepy. The warmth was doing his awareness no favours – the light of the living room and the presence of another person, when he’d been in an empty house for the past week, were doing wonders.

“Tim,” Bruce rumbled. “I thought we agreed you would tell me when your father went out of town.”

 _That_ jerked him out of his doze fast. Tim shuffled uncomfortably, turning his body and bracing his arms on Bruce’s middle so he could peer up at his face. He must’ve accidentally elbowed Bruce a couple of times, because there were several grunts and grimaces before he finally stopped moving.

“Um,” he began eloquently. “I forgot? They aren’t gone for long, though. Just another few days.”

Something flashed across Bruce’s face, and Tim looked away. He didn’t know how to explain to Bruce that his father was doing a lot better now, that he was _trying_. He just got called away on business sometimes, and he trusted Tim to take care of himself. There was nothing wrong with that. It was Tim, really, who could barely find the time to spend with his father when his father wanted to have a bonding session.

“You can stay here until he does,” Bruce said. “If he comes back early,” his tone implied what he thought the chances of that occurring were, “then you can tell him you felt sick. It wouldn’t be a lie.”

Tim glanced away, turning to face the fire. It’d be nice, to spend the rest of the week here with Bruce and Alfred. Mrs Mac, although not the most understanding about any matters, wouldn’t bat an eye at him going to Bruce’s, not when he’d been there for the duration of his father’s coma.

“I’d like to monitor you,” Bruce pressed on. “Just in case there was something we missed.”

Tim nodded. “Okay,” he said.

Bruce exhaled, his breath ruffling Tim’s hair. “Good,” he said. “Now sleep. You need rest.”

Tim fell asleep to the beating of Bruce’s heart under his ear, the gentle rise and fall of his torso.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! My bingo card is in the series description if anyone wants to request a square (I have like,,, 10? left to go?), and feel free to come chat w me on [tumblr](https://fanfictiongreenirises.tumblr.com/)


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